J.C. Coon: The Re-Check (Part 2 of 3)

Sorry, I too dislike continuations. It’s like you are into your favorite TV series and all of a sudden you realize they cannot tie all the ends together in the next two minutes. That’s kind of how it is with this story. So like TV, here is a re-cap:

I went to my family doctor for my annual physical, she sent me for my bi-annual mammogram, and I thought I was done.

Not.

I received a call back that they had ‘found something’ and I had to go in for a re-check. The story picks up where I have been waiting for the results of the re-check.

The Re-Check

My brother had urged me not be stoic and to take someone with me to the re-check.

Wish I had listened to him.

Sitting in the waiting area, just waiting, waiting, waiting. It seemed like a lifetime. Thoughts went through my head, like “What if I am terminal?” “How much time do I have left?”

I will have to figure out how to get rid of all my ‘stuff’ because my girls do not want it, and to hubby it is just “junk”. What about all my treasured family photos I had planned on scanning and putting on a disc. Photo albums are so “old school”.

And then I started with the ‘Bucket List’.

No, I really did not want to parachute out of and airplane or go to Tibet, but what did I really want to do?

Those are a few thoughts that went through my head in every second while I was kept waiting, waiting, just waiting.

Finally, I am ushered into a very tiny room; I found out later it was a closet in its previous life. It was large enough to hold two chairs a laptop and a light box to view x-rays.

Again I sit and wait.

I did not realize I would be waiting so long; I was tired of my own thoughts. I should have brought a magazine with me.

Options: I can stare at the walls, continue reading “The Hunger Games” on my Kindle, or check my emails on my iPhone.

Did they have a sign out front to turn off cell phones? I can’t remember.

Oh, here comes the doctor. We review the x-rays and she proceeds to explain the meaning of all the dots, lines, and circles on the x-ray. The whole scene reminds me of that Arlo Guthrie song, “Alice’s Restaurant”. You may remember that in the song these hippies have allegedly, committed a heinous crime. The sheriff is seeking justice, so he has gone to the trouble of taking photographs, developing them on “8×10 glossy paper”, drawing circles and arrows on the photographs to present his case to the court.

It turned out all the sheriff’s work was in vain. The presiding judge was blind.

I felt blank.

As hard as I tried to comprehend all that the doctor is saying about “readings were different than last time” and “grouping” and “calcification”’ and “we just want to be safe and do a biopsy”, none of it was really sinking in. The doctor was very nice, and very kind in explaining everything.

The only thought was okay, so what is next. What do I do with all of this information?

Next step.

The nurse comes in and goes over the whole biopsy procedure. What pills not to take, what to wear to the biopsy, what the procedure will consist of. Then the nurse explains that I will receive a shot of Novocain, a slight cut, and then they would vacuum out the cells in question. Then a tiny bit of titanium is implanted to mark the spot.

I was assured it was not enough titanium to set off TSA metal detectors.

The nurse wants to double-check all my vital information and medications. I was asked to review the information and sign here, here, and here. It is kind of like down loading something on the computer. When it says check here that you have read all and agree. But, if you do not hit agree, you cannot move forward.